THE INVESTIGATORS: Man arrested for posing as LSU employee has lengthy criminal history, court records show

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - A man has been arrested after allegedly posing as an LSU athletics employee and advertising a fake job to several women across Baton Rouge.

Darrlyn Winfrey, 55, was arrested Wednesday, Mar. 6 on unrelated charges from an incident involving the theft of a checkbook and the use of stolen checks back in 2016.

A spokesperson with LSU says this is an East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office case since the solicitations for the fake job happened off campus. Winfrey’s arrest comes less than a month after several women came forward claiming he targeted them at a car wash on Greenwell Springs Road posing as an LSU employee.

“He gave me his card and what was a suspicious red flag then was that when he gave me the card, he couldn’t even look me in the face,” one accuser said.

The bogus business card is what two of the women told WAFB’s Scottie Hunter the 55-year-old used to try to lure them into a phony clerical job.

(Source: WAFB)

“He told me to text my name to him and he would give me a call right back and he would handle everything from there,” the woman said.

WAFB has learned the criminal conspiracy charge against Winfrey for this case is just one of a handful of charges he now faces after investigators connected him to other crimes.

Back in October of 2016, someone reported their checkbook had been swiped while at an LSU football game. According to the LSU Police Department, Winfrey was later caught using those stolen checks. Investigators with EBRSO were finally able to track him down in early March and now, he’s locked up on nine counts each of bank fraud, forgery, and monetary instrument abuse. He was also booked as a fugitive from LSUPD.

A deeper dive into court records reveals Winfrey has a significant criminal history, with various theft and bank fraud charges going back to 1990. This latest fake job arrest is not the first time he has been accused of running a similar scheme. In 2010, records show he allegedly carried out a similar crime from inside prison walls. When investigators in the prison searched a cell phone hidden in his bed, they found countless text messages from Winfrey to women telling them to open new checking accounts and wire money. The requests were for work Winfrey asked them to do for him while posing as an NFL football player.

Parents of students attending Advantage Charter Academy are fuming Friday night after being told their kids will be held back and will need to attend a 16-day summer school program in order to advance to the next grade.